Cursive
by livelaughluvmusic
Summary: Kaidan and Shepard's child cannot help but ask questions about one soldier whom his parents left behind...


_Thanks to anyone who takes the time to review and I'm still learning, hope I've improved! Oh, and new question for any reviewers (only if you want to answer) did anyone die on your ME2 team? I wrote this after playing the Virmire mission with Kaidan going with the Captain and Ashley arming the bomb. Seeing Ash's last stand, mixed with the music that played afterward, was heart straining. Poor Ash!_

_Read on and **thank you!**_

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><p><em><strong>Boom!<strong>_

The noise echoed at the unholy hour of the night.

Kaidan Alenko watched Shepard steer at the sound that had woken him several moments earlier. She groaned at the sound, hoping it would go away or materialize into a shootable object.

"Sshh, I'll go see what it is" He whispered, wanting his wife to rest after being awake for almost twenty-four hours, being hounded by the council that wouldn't spare her a moment.

Rising from the bed and placing his toes onto the cold floor, Alenko drifted into the hallway, slowly closing the door to hush the creaking sounds. The house was large for any sort of residence on the Citadel, not many people had families they planned to expand. Most citizens were single and lived alone, or had some irrational fear of having, and raising, a family as if it would lower their status, harm their dignity and occupation. But as for the Alenkos, they planned to build until there was a pack of dark-haired, freckled young biotics running around causing mayhem.

A fixture of color-changing light streamed through the hallway. Kaidan blinked, his eye adjusting to the newly found illumination. He stopped for several seconds, carefully pulling his arm back to a sharp angle, ready to shield and defend himself if needed.

The color shifted again, followed by louder sounds before quickly being louder in volume. Kaidan released a calm breath, realizing what it was he mistook as a situation of battle or defense.

In the family room, on the couch, sat the youth that meant more to him than almost anything in the world. The t.v. was on and Kaidan instantly recognized it as a story, he thought, was being taught one to many times.

"Ben," The boy's father called quietly. Benjamin gasped at hearing one of his parents in the room. "What are doing?"

"N-nothing! I couldn't sleep and Grandma said when I couldn't sleep, I should come watch t.v." Unfortunately for him, children weren't very convincing lyers. Alenkos eyes focused from his son to the television screen. He turned back towards the toddler and rose an eyebrow. "I thought Mom turned this off the other day."

Ben squirmed under the statement. "It's weird with Mom watching! She thinks I'm to small to know what happened, but my teacher talked about it. She lied." He ended his argument with a pout of his lips and a crossing of his arms.

"What did she lie about, Ben?" Kaidan was intrigued by now. His son was never big on history, the fact he was so tangled in it now was endearing. He reached for the remote and silencing the t.v., a silent tale of Illos rolling in the background.

"She said Mom left the the asari to die because Mom is a human." Kaidan frowned and Benjamin continued to stare at him with his mother's glare, daring him to take the teacher's defense. Kaidan chose not to answer since his toddler already seemed to know that his mother left the asari because more lives would be lost to save those few survivors. He nodded to his son and pulled an arm around him, tucking him into his side as the actors representation of Vigil told the actions of the reapers.

The volume was low and Sovereign was being destroyed by the Alliance Fleet, when Benjamin looked up at Kaidan, wide eyed to match his out of the blue question.

"Would she have liked me?" _Ah, toddlers. Talking as if we knew exactly what they are thinking. _Alenko smiled slightly as his own wondering thoughts,"Everyone likes you"

"But would **She** have liked me?"

"Would who have liked you, Ben?" The tone curious as his brain ran a speed track trying to figure out what _she_ he could be referring to. This person must have some significance if Benjamin cared so much about their opinion. He was like his mother in that way, doing things and not caring what the onlookers have to say about those actions or that person.

His son was a soldier.

Benjamin answered his father's question in a low voice, as if afraid the answer would rattle him.

"Ms. Williams. Ashley." The pitch of his voice polite and honoring. He had just seen the drama-enhanced version of his mother's choice and the saving of one life while the other faded. The enhanced version, sadly, contained even less emotion that real life. There are somethings screens cannot pass on.

Alenko pondered over his son's question. They both had an attitude and wouldn't back down for anyone else's beliefs. They both had dark hair which had poisoned their skulls until they came so strong willed that any opposing forces could not break through, something Kaidan had,evidently, not inherited, and waited until it was their time to commit actions they believe to be important. They both read, mixing battle atmosphere with a calm background of literature which, to most people, seemed contradicting.

Kaidan popped a smile as fast as Ashley could fire a gun, "Yes. She would have loved you, and, mostly likely, spoiled you with poetry" Sometimes Kaidan missed Ash, but the smile on his son's face healed the sour taste in his stomach instantly. His eye twinkled as big as a cartoon character's and his white teeth showed the loving discipline of parents who wanted their son's hygiene to be better than a varren's.

"I think I would have liked her, too" Ben said, thinking over this woman he would spend a lifetime waiting to meet and who he only knew as _Ashley_, a poetry-loving, rifle-shooting sprite. Kaidan just smiled again as pictures of two playing with toy guns and miniaturized tanks while running in a filled park of various races. Truth was, he could only handle one rampaging soldier at the moment.

»»»»»

_Only in death will we have our own names since only in death are we no longer part of the effort. In death we become heros._

_A heart of gold stopped beating, two smiling eyes, she closed to rest. God broke our hearts to prove to us, He only takes the best._

_When you lose someone you love, you gain an angel that you know._

From that week forward, many of the guards wondered why roses were in an endless supply for a deceased soldier who was buried next to her father. The flowers were a normal sight at memorials and burial grounds, but these red and white wonders were not completely natural. In cursive handwriting, twisted over the stem and various thorns, were quotes. And for the life of them, they could not and did not know who placed them with such a delicate hand. But Ashley heard it, and her father heard it too.

Every time a rose was placed, there was a trickle of small footsteps and giggling smiles from a boy she was waiting to meet.

_And so my friends, I propose an idea: that life is not so neat and strong as print, but as curving and twisting as cursive. We do not leave this world until we are done and life our hands to flee._

_Rest in peace Ash..._


End file.
